Dead in the Water is the 8th book in the Mattie
Winston Mystery series and it was a delightfully engaging and funny read. This
story delves further into the background story between Mattie’s mother and
father and offers a bit more insight into how she grew up and why. Though the
beginning is a little slow, due to an overabundance of background information
that long time readers of the series will find tedious, it picked up a couple
of chapters in and kept up the pace until the last page.
This installment in the series finds Mattie living with
Hurley and his daughter Emily, as well as their son Matthew. This portion of
the book was a welcome surprise. Many of the previous books have had a lot of
emotional issues between these characters but they seem to have settled into a
wonderful family unit. Emily’s character has clearly grown and matured and it
was nice to avoid the teenage angst I feared might be coming. Matthew, who is
around 2 in this story, was hilarious and very well written. I enjoyed his
antics and the way he keeps his parents on their toes.
The mystery in this story felt a little overly complicated
and too far reaching but I appreciate the fact that it can easily Segway into future
books. The mystery kept me guessing for most of the book until some of the
larger clues became apparent. Though I was left without a full resolution to
the questions raised in the book it does leave me excited for the next book, as
I’m sure the author intended!
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